Search results
- Where are you right now? Karl Hyde: We’re in our studio in Essex.
- What was the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself and what was the medium? Rick Smith: The first vinyl I bought was a 7” of Hot Butter “Popcorn,” the daftest bit of electronics.
- What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do they think of what you do for a living now? Smith: My mother was a piano teacher.
- What was distinctive about where you grew up that shaped you as a musician? Smith: We both came from small towns in different parts of Wales. Like most young people, I dreamed of going where the grass was greener — which is difficult to beat in Wales because the grass is as green as you can possibly get.
- Freur. Karl Hyde and Rick Smith’s musical relationship first took flight in 1987 in Cardiff. Inspired by everything from Kraftwerk to reggae to electroclash, they soon formed a band alongside bass player Alfie Thomas, drummer Bryn Burrows and keyboardist John Warwicker.
- Underworld 'Underneath The Radar' With Freur’s ‘Doot Doot’ only placing as high as #59 on the UK singles chart, in 1987 Hyde, Smith, Thomas, Burrows and a bass player named Baz Allen formed a new band under the name Underworld.
- 'dubnobasswithmyheadman' 1994’s ‘dubnobasswithmyheadman’ is generally regarded as Underworld (or, at least, Underworld 'MK2'’s) debut LP for a variety of reasons.
- Trainspotting. We’ll get on to ‘Born Slippy’ in a moment, but first thing's first it should be recognised that Danny Boyle is quite clearly a huge Underworld fan.
- “Two Months Off”
- “Always Loved A Film”
- “Low Burn”
- “Beautiful Burnout”
- “Small Conker and A Twix/You Do Scribble”
- “Pearl’S Girl”
- “Dirty Epic”
- “Born Slippy .Nuxx”
- “Jumbo”
- “Juanita:Kiteless:To Dream of Love”
“It was just silly crap that hit the spot…and he let himself be drawn in.” As samples go, the snippet of dialogue embedded in the beginning of “Two Months Off” — a woman’s voice describing a crush developing from checking out the doodles on the back someone’s notebook — had more riding it on it than most. At this point in their career, Underworld h...
From “lager lager lager” to “crazy crazy crazy” (see below) to “you bring light in” (see above), repetition has always figured prominently in singer Karl Hyde’s lyrics. But it’s never done so more revealingly than in “Always Loved A Film,” a standout track from their last studio album, 2010’s Barking. The words that get the most play here? “The rhy...
It’s not hard to hear this highlight of Underworld’s new album as a bold move on the part of Bruce Springsteen, since it sounds for all the world like the Boss hired Hyde & Smith for a trance remix of “I’m On Fire.” Working the same melodic range as Springsteen’s minimalist midnight-hour masterpiece, “Low Burn” trades its similarly titled anteceden...
Unlike their many songs that invoke the sense of rapid transit sonically, “Beautiful Burnout” does so lyrically — but the effect is the opposite of the emotional-liberation-through-physical-movement vibe you might expect. “Blood on the tissue on the floor of a train,” Hyde intones in a low-pitched, watery echo, and after this dirty detail it only g...
A decade into an era where EDM routinely draws crowds of a size and enthusiasm level previously reserved for, like, AC/DC at Rock In Rio, saying “Underworld is a great live act” is less of an argument-settler than it used to be. Knob-twiddling electronica act specializing in rapturous body music slays ‘em in concert? You don’t say! But UW live reli...
A rare UW banger that eschews the usual 4/4 thump-thump-thump-thump, “Pearl’s Girl” relies completely on jittery jungle-influenced percussion for its base. On this challenging foundation it builds a lyrical edifice that juxtaposes evocative, ecstatic glimpses of seaside celebration (“the water on stone, the water on concrete, the water on sand”) wi...
The best track on what was for all intents and purposes Underworld’s debut album, “Dirty Epic” pulled off a balancing act with a preposterously high degree of difficulty. In a way it’s the record’s most retrograde song, with its verse/chorus/verse structure, its use of guitar, its undistorted and understated vocals, and its complete-sentence lyrica...
This is the big one. Plucked from B-side obscurity by soon-to-be frequent UW collaborator Danny Boyle for the closing sequence of his indie smash Trainspotting, this unrecognizable sorta-remix of what may as well have been an entirely different track(all they really share is the title) hit #2 in the UK charts following the film’s success. To listen...
“I need sugar.” That just about sums it up! Bouncy, bubbly, and as sweet as that lyric would indicate, “Jumbo” helped Underworld round out their three-album run as a trio in grand style. It features Karl Hyde’s sexiest vocal performance, cooing phrases like “I get thoughts about you, and the night it warms me like a little lost child” against the s...
The best song in Underworld’s catalog, the single strongest argument for their genius, isn’t a single thing at all. It’s three songs blurred into one, or one song with three separate sections; that it’s not clear which it is, or even where each of the three whatever-you-call-‘ems begins and ends, some 20 years after the recording initial release, i...
Oct 21, 2014 · It’s 20 years since Underworld released their groundbreaking LP, Dubnobasswithmyheadman. But what made it so influential? Andrew Harrison looks back.
Jan 26, 2024 · Discover a playlist that encapsulates the innovation and sheer sonic power of Underworld songs, a compendium shaped by the discerning tastes of music experts and the vibrant community of listeners who have been moved by the band's persistent creativity.
May 31, 2019 · 10 songs which signpost Underworld’s most significant and career-defining moments.
People also ask
Which songs signpost underworld's most significant and career-defining moments?
Why is underworld so popular?
What kind of music does underworld use?
Is Underworld a good album?
Underworld are a British electronic music group formed in 1987 in Cardiff, Wales [1] and the principal collaborative project of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith. Prominent former members include Darren Emerson, from 1990 to 2000, and Darren Price, as part of the live band from 2005 to 2016.
